scholarly journals Shh induces symmetry breaking in the presomitic mesoderm by inducing tissue shear and orientated cell rearrangements

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Yin ◽  
T. E. Saunders

AbstractFuture boundaries of skeletal muscle segments are determined in the presomitic mesoderm (PSM). Within the PSM, future somitic cells undergo significant changes in both morphology and position. How such large-scale cellular changes are coordinated and the effect on the future border formation is unknown. We find that cellular rearrangements differ between cell populations within the PSM. In contrast to lateral somitic cells, which display less organized rearrangement, the adaxial cell layer undergoes significant tissue shearing with dorsal and ventral cells sliding posteriorly. This shear is generated by orientated intercalations of dorsally and ventrally located adaxial cells, which induces a chevron-like pattern. We find Shh signaling is required for the tissue shear and morphogenesis of adaxial cells. In particular, we observe Shh-dependent polarized recruitment of non-muscle myosin IIA drives apical constrictions, and thus the intercalations and shear. This reveals a novel role for Shh in regulating cell mechanics in the PSM.

1975 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
T D Pollard

Electron micrographs of negatively stained synthetic myosin filaments reveal that surface projections, believed to be the heads of the constituent myosin molecules, can exist in two configurations. Some filaments have the projections disposed close to the filament backbone. Other filaments have all of their projections widely spread, tethered to the backbone by slender threads. Filaments formed from the myosins of skeletal muscle, smooth muscle, and platelets each have distinctive features, particularly their lengths. Soluble mixtures of skeletal muscle myosin with either smooth muscle myosin or platelet myosin were dialyzed against 0.1 M KC1 at pH 7 to determine whether the simultaneous presence of two types of myosin would influence the properties of the filaments formed. In every case, a single population of filaments formed from the mixtures. The resulting filaments are thought to be copolymers of the two types of myosin, for several reasons: (a) their length-frequency distribution is unimodal and differs from that predicted for a simple mixture of two types of myosin filaments; (b) their mean length is intermediate between the mean lengths of the filaments formed separately from the two myosins in the mixture; (c) each of the filaments has structural features characteristic of both of the myosins in the mixture; and (d) their size and shape are determined by the proportion of the two myosins in the mixture.


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